HardRockSamurai:I saw this movie only 12 hours ago, and I have to say that MovieBob's review really nails it on the head. It's a well-acted, well-directed superhero movie; I can't think of a better film to start off the summer movie line-up.

Once again, great review MovieBob, and if you really must know what's revealed after the credits...

If the first was better than the Dark Knight because it didn't insist on taking itself too seriously, dragging on too long, it had more compelling characters, and was just an overall better film, how can the Dark Knight be better than this? It boggles the mind!

Superman:Batman, you're no-nonsense solutions just don't hold water in a world of jet-powered apes and time travel.

It's an opinion there buddy, obviously Bob liked Dark Knight better than the first Iron Man. Just because you don't agree with that dose not make it wrong.

I think Scarlett Johansson being The Black Widow was supposed to be a surprise based upon the way the movie played out...which would have been great if someone had told the people who did the previews for the movie that.

Aww, they actually made us leave the theater like 3/4 into the credits and I wasn't sure enough there was something after them to insist at staying....sad face. So anyone willing can pm with the what's in the ending.EDIT: nevermind, read the article

Anyway, perfect summary of this movie really is - more of the first one with some cooler stuff - one more villain, one more ally, one more babe, one more problem (the dying thing). I really like the humour in this movie. I must say though that the both films would ahve been maybe just above average superhero movies, but Downey raises the bar.

Some criticism - again some scenes from the trailer were not in the movie (Pepper kissing the helmet, and Stark showing Natalie how to use the IM glove). And no "I am ironman" from Black Sabbath. And the freaking trailer is awufl, you could actually pull the plot out from it (and not the begining, the whole plot is told), from mentioned Black widow, to villian team up, but also War machine...I mean they could've kept something secret (like appearance of Two-face in Dark knight).

I must say that this is one of my favorite sequels.. I was expecting nothing but failure from this movie.. But.. It surprised me big time! I won't spoil anything for those who haven't seen it.. But it's totally worth the money. I think you got the most important points in your review bob! I bow to you Mr. Downey Jr

GRAHH! I went to see it last night, and I wanted to stay through the credits, but my stupid friend who I was with rushed me out! To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure if there even was a post-credits bit, so I just went with him, but I checked it on Wiki when I got home. Boy, was I raging last night.

OT: I loved it, but I was pretty disappointed at how little screen time Whiplash got. The drones were a bit annoying too, but all in all a great movie. I look forward to seeing how they make the Thor universe meld with that of Iron Man's and Captain America's and such.

After decades of hating or at least disliking all superhero movies it's good to see well written, acted and directed superhero movies (Dark Knight, Iron Man, Watchmen, Kickass) coming out in the last few years.

Now if only Michael Bay and others like him could be banned from genre films it would get even better.

I thought this movie tried to do a bit too much. There was a breakdown of Tony Stark leading to his build-up, his arch-rival with the business suit, his family enemy with the Russian guy, his business pressure from running Stark Ind., his love/friend relationship with Peppers, his pressure coming from the government and the military, his involvement with Shields, etc, etc. So in the end, almost nothing is flushed out or explained very well. It's a pretty fun ride, but the movie insists on putting all of these plot elements together ends up pretty disastrous and sometimes, downright boring. This feels very much like the Star Wars prequel to me, except not nearly as crappy.

EDIT: I hate the new Rhodey. He acts much much too serious for that role. The previous actor was a much better cast.

If the first was better than the Dark Knight because it didn't insist on taking itself too seriously, dragging on too long, it had more compelling characters, and was just an overall better film, how can the Dark Knight be better than this? It boggles the mind!

Superman:Batman, you're no-nonsense solutions just don't hold water in a world of jet-powered apes and time travel.

It's an opinion there buddy, obviously Bob liked Dark Knight better than the first Iron Man. Just because you don't agree with that dose not make it wrong.

To interject, it is wrong. Wrong in every way. I hate Dark Knight and people are just dick riding Batman.

You know to why it's bad? Everyone hated Daredevil. Everyone loved Dark Knight. Dark Knight was a duplicate of Daredevil, pretty much scene for scene with even the angles in the warehouse and street shoot out being the same, just more dragged out with 50 minutes of faffing about and with a Batman theme instead. Christian Bale was also a horribly 1-dimensional Batman, using scowly face/voice to make up for absolutely no depth of character.

I must be one of the few people who were disappointed. I went to see Iron Man 2 less than 24 hours ago, and... well...

The character development felt awkward and stilted in many places, the character of Justin Hammer must be one of the most brain-liquifyingly annoying people I've ever witnessed in a movie, Scarlet Johannsen (or however you spell that) managed to cement my conviction that merely looking good just doesn't cut it when you're trying to bring a comicbook character to life, there were some horribly dull lengths during the middle (seriously, cutting away about 20-25 minutes would have improved the movie), the interesting (and in some places really fun) bad guy got the short straw regarding well-used screentime, and they managed the impossible by not making Nick Fury - played by Samuel L. Bad Mutherfucker Jackson - look cool.

The movie did have its strengths, too, with solid action, an aforementioned altogether more interesting villain, some juicy tidbits for the fans (like the suitcase) and, of course, the introduction of War Machine... but these bits were in the minority, and the drastic decrease in levity didn't help the main character either, even though I understand that it was pivotal to the new plot.

Maybe this is one of those movies that get more enjoyable the second or third time around, but for now - and let me state that this, just like everything else in this post, is my humble opinion - I can't help but feel that Iron Man 2 reached for the extremely highly-set bar raised by its predecessor, fumbled spectacularly and broke at least one of its armored feet upon landing.

If the first was better than the Dark Knight because it didn't insist on taking itself too seriously, dragging on too long, it had more compelling characters, and was just an overall better film, how can the Dark Knight be better than this? It boggles the mind!

Superman:Batman, you're no-nonsense solutions just don't hold water in a world of jet-powered apes and time travel.

It's an opinion there buddy, obviously Bob liked Dark Knight better than the first Iron Man. Just because you don't agree with that dose not make it wrong.

To interject, it is wrong. Wrong in every way. I hate Dark Knight and people are just dick riding Batman.

You know to why it's bad? Everyone hated Daredevil. Everyone loved Dark Knight. Dark Knight was a duplicate of Daredevil, pretty much scene for scene with even the angles in the warehouse and street shoot out being the same, just more dragged out with 50 minutes of faffing about and with a Batman theme instead. Christian Bale was also a horribly 1-dimensional Batman, using scowly face/voice to make up for absolutely no depth of character.

I agree!

In fact... my FIRST topic post (on the escapist) was "The Dark Knight SUCKED!" and I stil think that to this very day!

Wow, I never heard of the War Machine and Whiplash. Whiplash seems pretty cool with Mickey Rourke but that's a villain so not sure how he needs any intro or purpose to exist but why is there another Iron Man running around? I guess I'll need to do some reading.

Ok. internet had some info.

War machine by Terrence Howard and Iron man are really great friends, it is touching to see. Terrence Howard seems a pretty interesting guy too, and it is cool to see Terrence Howard's character get into the suit because he imo seems us folks watching the movie and wanting to fly that suit our self : ) so yeah I'm on board with War Machine.

Mickey Rourke is a pretty interesting character actor, cool to watch.

But I like the secretary lady, she is soooo sweet!!! Not interested as Johanna.

Wait, we already had this talk. I haven't seen the film, but after hearing about the basic plot structure and the ways this film differs from the last, I have to confess I may be irreparably poisoned against this movie, simply because the things I've heard are missing here and some of the contradictions folks have been mentioning to me (Stark was living an entire movie under the threat of death before this-I find it odd that he'd suddenly decide to go manic-depressive under a new threat of imminent doom. I mean, the guy was positive he'd be dead in a week and he still found the time to build a mech suit)... Let's just say at this point Iron Man 2 is going to have to be really, really so much better than what I'm expecting.

I mean, Iron Man was unexpectedly brilliant. A nice juxtaposition of larger-than-life superheroics, genuinely funny comedy, good casting and gritty realism kept the thing moving. But in the sequels, well... If anything in that formula is missing or not quite as good as it was, the movie is going to feel lacking. Not every sequel can be Empire Strikes Back.

And disappointing last fight my butt (in the original Iron Man). I thought the idea of Stark basically using his Pacemaker to fight the bad guy and balancing his own life against the safety of others (a literal battle of self-sacrifice) was a brilliant move. Maybe the action wasn't BIGGER AND BETTERER than what came before, but it was more poignant and had more relevance to the character conflicts which led up to that moment.

To interject, it is wrong. Wrong in every way. I hate Dark Knight and people are just dick riding Batman.

You know to why it's bad? Everyone hated Daredevil. Everyone loved Dark Knight. Dark Knight was a duplicate of Daredevil, pretty much scene for scene with even the angles in the warehouse and street shoot out being the same, just more dragged out with 50 minutes of faffing about and with a Batman theme instead. Christian Bale was also a horribly 1-dimensional Batman, using scowly face/voice to make up for absolutely no depth of character.

I agree!

In fact... my FIRST topic post (on the escapist) was "The Dark Knight SUCKED!" and I stil think that to this very day!

YAY!! More people who hated The Dark Knight. It was terrible, if Heath Ledger didnt die it would have done not half as well. Im more than happy it didnt with the Oscar for Best Picture.

I'm really starting to hate MovieBob.On-topic, even though the Iron Man movies have been so highly praised, I'm still not going to see this one. I feel I'm going to be horribly dissapointed. After seeing what they did with Iron Man 1, where I watched about an hour and a quarter of terrorists having a nice old chat that bored me enough to make me go downstairs and not be bothered to watch anymore for the 10th time, I doubt this will be much better. There's no way to find out how good this movie is by trailers or reviews, because all they talk about is the action scenes, which there's probably a total of 5 minutes of.This hardly counts as a superhero movie in my book, not that any of them are any good. The Dark Knight had the exact same problem.

Sigh...people trying to prove their impeccable taste by hating on Dark Knight...

All that aside since this is about the IRON MAN 2 review and not Dark Knight; I found this review a bit lacking...Bob is usually great but he's just way too starstruck by the Avengers, (which I am not excited by at all because crossovers have never been a good idea and whether or not it turns out to be great I'm not gushing over the concept) and it seems like he's giving them credit just for hitting at a futute movie instead of talking about the movie at hand.

Although I disagree with people who claim about the lack of action...character and story are good, even if they involve brain thinky words and not bloody pictures.

Just came back from seeing this. My only gripe is that SHIELD members are only hanging around just so people know that The Avengers movie is coming.BTW, just putting it out there: no matter what she's wearing, Scarlett Johansson ALWAYS looks good. Now, if only Black Widow wasn't such an ice queen. Then I'd be more "interested."

Hey Bob, who'd you think would win in a fight: Black Widow or Black Mamba?

I usually agree with MovieBob, but not this time. I guess I was only a moderate fan of the original film (say, 6/10), but this sequel is a bit of a dog. It's like there's been a breakout at a prison for minor characters, and the in-mates are running around barking about sequels, while the main protagonists try to get on with a whole different movie. And competent though he is, Favreau is no Jackson, Cameron or Spielberg - he just hasn't got the skill to blend CGI with real human emotion, so it's like watching an old-fashioned screwball comedy-of-interruptions, occasionally interrupted by a videogame cut-scene.

Nerf Ninja:I've always thought the Iron man films to be vastly superior to the Nolan Batman films, they take themselves much too seriously for films about a man dressed like a bat.

Dark Knight was boring and nonsensical with ok acting.

I agree somewhat. I much preferred Batman Begins to The Dark Knight. Batman Begins just felt more like a superhero movie rather than a gritty detective film with too much talking. Iron man knows what it is, a fun and flashy superhero blockbuster.

ok i am a fan of iron man, always have been and i saw the movie an hour ago and really enjoyed itbut if i could get help with one thing it would be someone clarifying bobs joke statement why would that piss people off?